Ball in motion to have Athol Trollip booted from office

The special request for a council meetings was submitted by the AIC's Tshonono Buyeye, the ANC's Andile Lungisa, the UDM's Mongameli Bobani, the PA's Marlon Daniels and the EFF's Zilindile Vena on Friday.
Photo: Supplied

PORT ELIZABETH - Opposition parties in Nelson Mandela Bay have on Friday petitioned Speaker Jonathan Lawack to convene a special council meeting with the intention of once again trying to oust Mayor Athol Trollip.

Earlier this year, Daniels was appointed as the mayoral committee member for roads and transport following the PA joining the coalition.

"We, the undersigned majority of counicllors of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipal Council, hereby request that you convene a special council meeting in the Council Chambers, Woolboard building, Military Road Central, on Friday 10 August 2018 at 2pm," the petition read.

The opposition parties, with the PA, hold a combined 61-seat majority in the council of 120 seats. The DA-led coalition together with the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and Congress of the People (Cope) have 59 seats.

The ANC has 50 seats, the EFF six, the UDM two and the AIC, PA and United Front have one each.

The opposition parties are sitting together at one table in attempt to put a new coalition government in place and want the following motions to be heard next week Friday -- to remove Trollip as mayor; to remove Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor Lawack as speaker of council; to remove DA councillor Werner Senekal as chief whip; to rescind the decision of council in November last year that dissolved the post of deputy mayor; to vote in a new deputy mayor; and to remove all political heads of municipal portfolios.

This will be the third attempt of to boot Trollip from office after the last motion of no confidence was withdrawn by the EFF earlier in May this year.

Meanwhile, DA leader Mmusi Maimane on Friday condemned plans by political parties in Nelson Mandela Bay to form a new coalition against his party's white mayor, saying the party would not be part of a coalition based on race.

''On this new coalition that is being spoken of...we cant coalise on race, we cant get together and say we are doing so because we are black or we are white....or that we will only deliver for this race and not that race," Maimane said on Friday.

"That is not the SA we want to build...we want to build one country for all,'' he told a second-year review in Johannesburg of how DA-led metros in the country have performed.

Maimane said it was clear that the opposition parties want to take NMB back to the ''corrupt ways of the ANC", a reference to the national ruling African National Congress which ran the city until municipal elections in 2016.

The ANC lost the metro in the 2016 local government elections. No political party was able to clinch a majority and this resulted in the DA having to sign coalition agreements with smaller opposition parties in order to have enough numbers to govern the city.